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In this article we will cover some of the important aspects of choosing a hosting partner for your website hosting, email hosting or domain registration.
Location
The first thing to consider is location, where is the hosting company located? Why is this important if everything is online nowadays anyway and accessible 24×7? It’s actually a very important reason when choosing your hosting provider primarily because you want to be dealing with a company in the same time zone for support responses but also choosing a company in the same country or at least where the first language is English.
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to resolve an urgent issue, for example your website is offline, where emails are misinterpreted or you have to wait additional time for replies as the hosting company operates in a different time zone.
Secondly if you intend on targeting the Irish market then your website will benefit from being hosted in Ireland. Google looks at the location of your server in the ranking algorithm and uses this for local ranking. The closer you are to your target market, the higher you are likely to rank. In addition to this the speed of your site for local visitors is important to your ranking position (SERP) and therefore you want to chose a service provider in Ireland if Ireland is your target market. All our servers are located in Dublin, Ireland.
It is also worth pointing out that some of the larger global hosting companies will use clever tactics to give the impression they are Irish by using a .ie (Irish) domain name and displaying an Irish flag on their website. While these companies may still offer a good service their hosting and staff are not located in Ireland and most likely they outsource their support channel outside of the EU.
Lastly if you intend on processing customer information by allowing visitors to enter their personal information on your website then you must host your website within the EU for compliance with GDPR laws.
Support and sales query response times
When dealing with your hosting company you don’t want to be waiting days or even hours for a response if you have an issue with your website. Even if your issue is not resolved immediately, you at least want to know you are being looked after.
MyHost.ie uses live chat (Weekdays 09.00-17:00GMT) and an online email ticket system. Most inquiries are resolved quickly, normally the first reply within a 15-minute window and resolved within an hour unless additional time is required for investigation.
On top of that we also provide phone support (Weekdays 9.00am-5:00pm) for any sales and support questions.
Hosting reliability & control panel
Not all hosting is equal. Many hosting companies will oversell their hosting platform, allowing thousands of websites per web server which will affect website loading times and overall performance. Not only does this lead to website speed issues, but also can lead to security issues and may impact adversely on ranking.
Our hosting platform is built on a highly available, distributed storage system with built-in replication and self-healing. We use enterprise grade hardware, always and we have a strict no oversell policy.
MyHost.ie uses Plesk control panel software which is the industry leading panel available. Plesk have invested heavily in developing an easy to use and secure hosting panel and we have been partnered with them for more than 15 years giving us excellent knowledge and also an excellent business relationship with the Plesk team.
Our hosting plans are designed and priced to cover most hosting requirements and budgets from a small personal website to a large e-commerce store and our sales team will be happy to discuss options via email, live chat or over a phone call.
Features, scalability & add-ons
A good hosting company will not only provide you with the software and infrastructure to host your website but they should also be able to support your business as it starts to grow. This is when you will need advice and support from your hosting company on scaling your hosting solution to match the traffic to your website, you might need to upgrade to another plan with more resources or move to your own virtual cloud server or dedicated server and you will need your hosting company to carry out these tasks for you.
Do check and make sure their hosting plans have the features you require for your website to function smoothly. Most hosting companies have different levels of hosting plans from entry level low traffic personal hosting websites to e-commerce ready business hosting solutions that can handle thousands of daily visitors. You need to make sure your website performs to the best of its ability and to do that it needs the correct hosting plan.
Do they offer a website migration service if your moving from one provider to another ? If so is there a cost involved ? Do their hosting plans support SSL certificates to secure your website? Can you install popular Content Management Software easily such as WordPress? Is there a website builder available? Do they offer a website backup service? These are just some things to consider when choosing a hosting company.
Security
Because more and more websites are being built using content management systems such as WordPress, which is by far the most popular, it is very important that your hosting company provides the latest server software (e.g PHP, Apache, MySQL) and the underlying infrastructure is up to date and regularly patched.
MyHost.ie also offers its customers additional security services with our website application firewall (WAF) and website malware cleanup addons. We also have a range of SSL certificates to encrypt your website with HTTPS which helps improve your google search results and protect against hackers, an off-site Website Backup and email backup service and a WordPress care plan so we can manage your WordPress install, updating it to the most recent versions and securing it with our WAF.
Value & pricing
Everyone wants good value for money right ? But a good rule to remember, and this applies to everything in life , if something seems to cheap then most likely there is something wrong with it. If a hosting company seems much much cheaper than others, there is most likely a reason and some aspect of their service may be compromised , for example, great it’s really cheap but there is no phone support or it takes 2 days for an email response. MyHost.ie’s pricing may not be the cheapest out there but we are competitive and offer value for money because we provide an excellent service with fast friendly Irish support.
Another point to consider is renewal pricing. Often hosting companies will entice you in with really good prices and you sign up, but there is a catch, when the plan renews the following year it triples in price and this may not be clear when you reach their checkout. Don’t be afraid to ask these questions, contact them on their live chat or sales channel and ask about renewal pricing etc.
MyHost.ie will always notify a customer of price increases or make it clear during the sign-up process.
About the Author: Martin Saunders
